Arafat denounces bin Laden

last updated 8 January 2015

Ramallah, West Bank

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat demanded this week that Osama bin Laden stop saying he’s fighting for the Palestinians. “Why is bin Laden talking about Palestine now?” Arafat said in an interview with the London Sunday Times. “He never helped us. He was working in another, completely different area and against our interests.” Al Qaida has only recently begun to cite Palestinian “liberation” as a motivating factor in its terrorist attacks. For years its official statements railed against Christians and Jews in general and U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia in particular. In taking responsibility for last month’s bombing of a Kenyan hotel, though, al Qaida said, “Liberation of our holy places, led by Palestine, is our central issue.”